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auDA Board Public Minutes - 9 August, 2004"The board also considered correspondence from Theo Hranakis, Melbourne IT and
an accompanying statement signed by 7 other registrars, in relation to auDA's
media release of 17 June 2004 entitled "auDA reduces its fee for .au domain
names". Registrars expressed concerns about the statement"If consumers find thattheir registrar has not passed on auDA's cost saving, they may wish to shop
around to find another registrar who will".​

"The CEO and other staff are fully accountable to the Board, who are in turn accountable to the Australian Internet community."

" .au Domain Administration Limited (auDA) is an incorporated membership based non- profit organisation with representation from supply and demand sectors of the Australian Internet community. The organisation was established in April 1999 as a result of the efforts of a NOIE sponsored working group, with a view to managing the .au country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD)."

" Because of the diverse arrangements, auDA has determined that funding pre- competition will be via a fixed licence fee model. This licence fee will be determined by a number of factors including: • the number of domains that are registered; • whether the registrar charges a fee for registration services; • if the domain is "commercial'' or "community of interest'';

We made a decision not to signup for this promotion as in our opinion it has two main issues.

Firstly it is focused on a very narrow band of renewals, those in the 60 - 90 day window.
Secondly the discount is too low to compete with what is in the pipeline.

Let me elaborate.
A renewal window of 1 month means that only 1/24th of your domains under management will qualify. On average our customers have only about 11 domains that qualify and at $5 each that equates to a total potential discount of $55 per customer.

In the pipeline for domainers we have 1 - 5 year registrations coming plus a 10% discount on the wholesale price. A 10% discount is effectively a $2 discount and it counts for everything, domains created, domains renewed and domains CoRed.

Example: If you are paying right now $49.95 for 2 year renewals, after rebate you would pay $44.95 for 2 years

After July 1, renewals will be reduced to $44.95 ($22.50 per year with the 10% discount)

so your options are:
Pay $44.95 early
or
Pay $22.50 later

The same formula applies if you are on a bulk discounted rate. (Tip: If you do not have a bulk discount with us, please contact us.)

So from our perspective, as this rebate program was limited and affects your Cash Flows, it was not likely to be used by our clients.

Registrars embraced the co-op program as a dramatic and welcome departure from past practices. They were further pleased with the technical progress, and seemed quite comfortable with the pace and amount of change taking place. Rod Keys, Director of DDNS, remarked: “We are excited about the upgrades and are fully prepared for the transition in June. These new marketing programs from auDA are terrific and will really help us ensure .au names are the first choice for Australian registrants.”

Even the title of this post is misleading, at best the offer was $5 off a two year renewal of $20 which by my maths is closer to a 25% discount.

- Anthony

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Thanks Anthony.

Why wouldn't you have signed up for this promotion to at least take advantage of the discount for yourselves and your customers? Consumers do have .au eligible names renewing with you within this period don't they?

You have stated the best offer was $5 off a two year renewal of $20 meaning $15 for 2 years? Who is this with?

Is the auDA / Afilias marketing scheme promotion money and efforts aimed at Registrars ( such as 50% co funding for the Registrar doing marketing / advertising campaigns but not actual price discounts) or is it actually aimed at .au domain name existing and new Consumers seeing a real benefit in their pricing?

What is apparent is for too long the marketing schemes which have been using the auDA Funds ( .au (domain name Consumer money ) have not been known by many auDA Members, Resellers or Consumers. Maybe their needs to be a list of the promotions co funded on the auDA website so there is full transparency and accountability. People can then judge who is benefiting and the true ROI for all stakeholders.

What we hear now is auDA is planning to run the marketing funds themselves instead of the .au wholesale registry subcontractor provider. If so then auDA needs to be fully accountable and transparent as they should have been all along.

The fact is there is so much cash stuffed away they need to blow it before 30th June before the change in .au wholesale registry provider. This is the current promotion for the .au renewal discounted price which has been kept secret and all stakeholders especially demand class auDA members need to ask why.

Why wouldn't you have signed up for this promotion to at least take advantage of the discount for yourselves and your customers? Consumers do have .au eligible names renewing with you within this period don't they?

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As I said before $100 on support and education to give you a theoretical $55 saving which is actually an $11 loss to you makes no sense to me. I will be spending my support and education budget on helping you get the hang of the benefits of 1 year renewals.

Is the auDA / Afilias marketing scheme promotion money and efforts aimed at Registrars ( such as 50% co funding for the Registrar doing marketing / advertising campaigns but not actual price discounts) or is it actually aimed at .au domain name existing and new Consumers seeing a real benefit in their pricing?

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The new scheme is going to be more flexible. The odds of you or me benefiting from them are very low as we only represent 5% of the market. Retail consumers will benefit from better education and from Registrars being motivated to sell .au at the top of their drop down list. There is nothing in there for domainers and I doubt there ever will be. At least nothing is better than a kick in the teeth.

What is apparent is for too long the marketing schemes which have been using the auDA Funds ( .au (domain name Consumer money ) have not been known by many auDA Members, Resellers or Consumers. Maybe their needs to be a list of the promotions co funded on the auDA website so there is full transparency and accountability. People can then judge who is benefiting and the true ROI for all stakeholders.

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auDA funds to date have not been used for marketing but in theory you would ask for it after 1 July.

What we hear now is auDA is planning to run the marketing funds themselves instead of the .au wholesale registry subcontractor provider. If so then auDA needs to be fully accountable and transparent as they should have been all along.

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auDA running the marketing is a new initiative, there is no retrospective need for transparency on this topic.
As per the Government review auDA is an effective monopoly so their are going to be held accountable by the Government during quarterly reviews. You are going to need to lobby DoCA if you want questions asked and answered. The days of shouting at SGMs and AGMs is almost over.

The fact is there is so much cash stuffed away they need to blow it before 30th June before the change in .au wholesale registry provider. This is the current promotion for the .au renewal discounted price which has been kept secret and all stakeholders especially demand class auDA members need to ask why.

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Almost every department in every organisation has budgets they need to spend by the end of the Financial Year.
There is no conspiracy and there are no secrets beyond normal confidentiality between a customer and their supplier.
This is a mole hill (actually a mole hole) you are trying to drum up into a mountain.

Why wouldn't you have signed up for this promotion to at least take advantage of the discount for yourselves and your customers? Consumers do have .au eligible names renewing with you within this period don't they?

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Hi

The work required to support this, promote this, to meet the requirements, educate our clients, apply the rebates after the fact... was simply not viable based on the benefit, potential costs saving and the sheer nature of our clients who simply prefer to pay the last possible day for renewals.

The work required to support this, promote this, to meet the requirements, educate our clients, apply the rebates after the fact... was simply not viable based on the benefit, potential costs saving and the sheer nature of our clients who simply prefer to pay the last possible day for renewals.

Cheers
David

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So from what you have said this auDA / Ausregistry / Registrar marketing promotion program does not work very well for anyone by the sounds of it?

As a customer of yours I would have liked you to participate and pass on this promotion.

So from what you have said this auDA / Ausregistry / Registrar marketing promotion program does not work very well for anyone by the sounds of it?

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This program has benefits and when taken up by clients that are interested in long term renewals, so this program is fine in such cases. So great for end users.

If we can still sign up for the program and if they look at increasing the time frame or the amount of rebate, that will definitely encourage us to support it as then it will make sense to do so for our clients and the cost to implement is then worth it.